Concept

Kennet and Avon Canal

The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of , made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than solely to the central canal section. From Bristol to Bath the waterway follows the natural course of the River Avon before the canal links it to the River Kennet at Newbury, and from there to Reading on the River Thames. In all, the waterway incorporates 105 locks. The two river stretches were made navigable in the early 18th century, and the canal section was constructed between 1794 and 1810. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the canal gradually fell into disuse after the opening of the Great Western Railway. In the latter half of the 20th century the canal was restored in stages, largely by volunteers. After decades of dereliction and much restoration work, it was fully reopened in 1990. The Kennet and Avon Canal has been developed as a popular heritage tourism destination for boating, canoeing, fishing, walking and cycling, and is also important for wildlife conservation. The idea of an east-to-west waterway link across southern England was first mentioned in Elizabethan times, between 1558 and 1603, to take advantage of the proximity of tributaries of the rivers Avon and Thames, only apart at their closest. Later, around 1626, Henry Briggs made a survey of the two rivers and noted that the land between them was level and easy to dig. He proposed a canal to connect them, but following his death in 1630 the plan was dropped. After the English Civil War four bills were presented to parliament, but all failed after opposition from gentry, farmers and traders worried about cheaper water transport reducing the value of fees on turnpike roads they controlled, and cheaper produce from Wales undercutting locally produced food. The main alternative to road transport for the carriage of goods between Bristol and London was a hazardous sea route through the English Channel.

About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Related publications (5)

Automated Analysis of Cerebrospinal Fluid Flow and Motile Cilia Properties in The Central Canal of Zebrafish Embryos

François Gallaire, Ludovic Pierre Gustave Keiser

Circulation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) plays an important role during development. In zebrafish embryo, the flow of CSF has been found to be bidirectional in the central canal of the spinal cord. In order to compare conditions and genetic mutants across ...
BIO-PROTOCOL2021

Origin and role of the cerebrospinal fluid bidirectional flow in the central canal

François Gallaire, Ludovic Pierre Gustave Keiser

Circulation of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) contributes to body axis formation and brain development. Here, we investigated the unexplained origins of the CSF flow bidirectionality in the central canal of the spinal cord of 30 hpf zebrafish embryos and it ...
ELIFE SCIENCES PUBLICATIONS LTD2020

Coupled effects of canal lining and multi-layered soil structure on canal seepage and soil water dynamics

David Andrew Barry

Ponding tests were conducted in the Shiyang River Basin in Northwest China to assess canal leakage characteristics. Four anti-seepage constructions (concrete lining, pebble lining, clay lining plus compacted canal bed, compacted canal bed only) were perfor ...
2012
Show more
Related concepts (10)
Narrowboat
A narrowboat is a particular type of canal boat, built to fit the narrow locks of the United Kingdom. The UK's canal system provided a nationwide transport network during the Industrial Revolution, but with the advent of the railways, commercial canal traffic gradually diminished and the last regular long-distance transportation of goods by canal had virtually disappeared by 1970. However, some commercial traffic continued. From the 1970s onward narrowboats were gradually being converted into permanent residences or as holiday lettings.
Chippenham
Chippenham is a market town in northwest Wiltshire, England. It lies northeast of Bath, west of London, and is near the Cotswolds Area of Natural Beauty. The town was established on a crossing of the River Avon and some form of settlement is believed to have existed there since before Roman times. It was a royal vill, and probably a royal hunting lodge, under Alfred the Great. The town continued to grow when the Great Western Railway arrived in 1841. The town had a population of 36,548 in 2021.
Reservoir
A reservoir (ˈrɛzərvwɑːr; from French réservoir ʁezɛʁvwaʁ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, usually built to store fresh water, or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of water, interrupting a watercourse to form an embayment within it, excavating, or building any number of retaining walls or levees.
Show more

Graph Chatbot

Chat with Graph Search

Ask any question about EPFL courses, lectures, exercises, research, news, etc. or try the example questions below.

DISCLAIMER: The Graph Chatbot is not programmed to provide explicit or categorical answers to your questions. Rather, it transforms your questions into API requests that are distributed across the various IT services officially administered by EPFL. Its purpose is solely to collect and recommend relevant references to content that you can explore to help you answer your questions.